


You are born in 1986

by butterflybooks



Series: Untold Stories [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: During the War, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:22:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflybooks/pseuds/butterflybooks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The War was not only fought in a tent. It was fought in school corridors, and ministry offices, and on the run and in radio stations. It was fought by everyone who decided to stand up. It was fought by everyone old enough to know what they wanted to fight for.</p>
<p>You are born in 1986. Your first year at Hogwarts is torn apart by war.</p>
<p>No one told you it would be like this.</p>
<p>These are the Untold Stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You are born in 1986

You are born in 1986 and no one tells you what this will mean.

Of course, they don’t know, but you feel this is more of a side detail.

Your father is a muggle-born, your mother a half-blood. He works as a broom-engineer and she’s an occasional columnist for multiple papers.

You’re almost not sent to Hogwarts. It has been a playful argument between them for as long as you can remember. Your father attended Beauxbatons but your mother swears by Hogwarts. You don’t know which one would have won out.

They don’t have a choice of course, in the end.

You grow up with a kind of dim knowledge of trouble brewing in the wizarding world. Mainly it is at the breakfast table when your father and mother will discuss it in the voices used to discuss far off happenings. Later you think it is unfortunate that they fell into the trap of feeling like it was far off. He may as well have been sitting at the table with them.

But you are young, perhaps nine or ten, and it is not nearly so urgent as butterfly-catching.

You attend a muggle primary school, and only occasionally have to be reminded not to turn unpleasant teachers blue.

When it comes time to go to Hogwarts you are ready. You do not know how your parents decided in the end. Not then. You are told by your mother to keep your head down, not to mention your father and try and stay out of trouble, and when they kiss you and wave you off, their tears are far more sad than those of parents going to miss their child for a term.

Your father is a muggle born, your mother a half blood. You are clinging to this world by the skin of your teeth.

You are sorted into Ravenclaw. There is a curious energy to the hall, you can feel it. But you feel it is not such a bad place. You walk there on shaky legs, a girl with onions (you think) in her hair moves over to make room for you and smiles. You have been through the teachers on the train and those asking questions about bloodlines on the platform. You saw their sneers and their cruel eyes. You have a feeling kindness will be in short supply in your first year at Hogwarts.

You learn. But not the things you expected.

You learn that this world hates you, your father, most of your grandparents too - once it comes to that. You sit in a Muggle Studies class and listen to lies about people who you will continue to think of as more 'your kind' than these wizards and witches, with their cruel eyes and hateful minds. 

This is not quite fair. There are kind people with magic too. It just takes a while for you to find them.

You learn to keep your head down, but one day you do something so small and insignificant as to be something you gave no thought to. But it is wrong. Apparently. But before a Carrow can enact their vengeance upon you, someone else steps up.

You have been keeping your head down, but there are countless students willing to keep theirs above the parapet.

You learn that Harry Potter (who you have heard of before, thank you very much) is a far off kind of hero, but you are more interested in those who are there now.

You learn that Luna Lovegood is good for a healing charm when Madam Pomfrey is forbidden to perform it, and that she's even better for talking her calming nonsense until you stop crying.

You learn that Ginny Weasley can unite people across all four (yes, four) houses, and will not hesitate to perform a bat-bogey hex if anyone is in danger from students in the corridors.

You learn that Neville Longbottom will never hesitate to stand up and take a hex or a curse for you - or anyone. And that he'll carry on as long as people follow him, which, it turns out, they will.

You find your heroes.

And you find you.

You are in Ravenclaw, and the questions change everyday but that's OK, because you have questions of your own. You learn to question everything, and you will never blindly accept a teacher's lecture again. Even the ones who everyone says can be trusted. This does not end when the war is over, because you do not end when the war is over.

You learn that when someone says no, it's too dangerous for you, what they really mean is: no, we want to see if you'll come anyway.

You do. Who says it's only Gryffindors and Slytherins who are full of pride? You're in a house that announces its intelligence to every passer-by, and you're clever enough to know when you're being baited.

You join the DA. It's a stupid name, in your opinion. Naming yourself after a man who by all accounts was never 100% upfront or on their side, but you were not consulted and you can't argue with what they stand for.

Well. You can. You can argue with anything.

You will be tested, that year, and then it will stop. You are at the final battle. You are not stupid. You do not insist on fighting, but you do insist on staying. Well. That would imply you told anyone. In all honesty, it is as easy to slip away and hide in an alcove whilst you hear the cries of the fight and of the dying and the mourning and the good and the bad around you. You hide and, by some miracle (your excellent hiding place thank you, very much) you are not killed. And then it is over. But you are not.

You have lived a war. It is in your veins now.

The next year, you will greet a twelve year old who is entering your year a year late.

She will say to you, "I am a muggle-born so I wasn't able to come last year." She will lean closer. "To tell the truth, I'm kind of terrified."

And it occurs to you that this girl was also born in 1986. And no one told her what that would mean, either. And they did not know, but that is not really the point. 

"It's OK," you say, finding not compassion but an understanding. "We'll get used to it."

The girl will look in askance at you, and you will clarify: "The not nearly dying everyday. I imagine it will get easier."

The girl who is a muggleborn and is most astonishingly not dead will look at you for a second in shock and then she will laugh.

And then your story will continue.


End file.
